The development of the contemporary business is accompanied by the growing competition. Many companies attempt to attract customers and offer their services worldwide. At the same time, one of the major problems many customers face in the contemporary business environment is the problem of the lack of cost effective tax structures that could minimize costs of companies that operate worldwide.

Naturally, in such a situation, many companies attempt to fill the gap on the market and offer their own cost effective tax structures to their customers worldwide. Among these companies, it is possible to single out, K&L Preston Gates Ellis LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers as the major competitors offering cost effective tax structures on the global market.

First of all, it should be said that both companies are basically oriented on international markets and offer their services to customers who work worldwide. Naturally, while operating worldwide customers of K&L and PricewaterhouseCoopers are affected by tax, regulatory and legal development around the world and both companies attempt to facilitate the work of their customers in all parts of the world. In this respect, it should be said that PricewaterhouseCoopers, being based in Switzerland, provides support for its customers to optimize their international tax, legal and financing structures, from a tax point of view. The company also offers gearing customers’ tax structures to changing business models and in designing, documenting and defending transfer prices. Moreover, the company also developed an integrated solution which was developed specifically for international companies, Safer Tax.

K&L Gates is based in the US. Basically, K&L Gates operates in the US and the UK, but, in recent years, the company continues expansion on international markets and, at the present moment, the company operates worldwide, though the US and the UK still remain the major markets of K&L Gates. Basically, the company advises national and international corporations, limited liability companies, other business entities and high net-worth individuals and families with respect to all areas of tax law. The company’s tax lawyers advise customers on a variety of tax and business matters. At the same time, one of the major goals of the company is to provide customers with cost effective tax structures worldwide. Moreover, the company actively develops its business in the field of technology and electronic commerce that opens new opportunities for the company and its penetration new markets. In this respect, the company seems to be in an advantageous position compared to its competitor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, which tends to focus on traditional businesses and the process of entering technology and e-commerce market is rather slow, at least, compared to K&L Gates.

At the same time, it is worth mentioning the fact that both companies face the problem of competition from the part of minor rivals. For instance, one of the competitors of both companies is Global Management and Consulting AG (GM&C), based in Lichtenstein. This company offers its customers cost effective tax structures, which could optimize their business and decrease the taxation pressure. The company charges 7% fee (GM&C, 2008) that is 1% lower compared to Opus that may give GM&C certain advantage compared to Opus due to the lower price of its services for customers. At the same time, it is necessary to remember about the customer loyalty and the image of the company. In this respect, PricewaterhouseCoopers still can compete with GM&C and achieve significant successes, though the competition strengthens and GM&C can improve its performance, while lower price of its services may increase the popularity of the company among customers.

The same trend can be observed in relation to Access Financial Services Sarl, based in Switzerland, which fee is the lowest among all the companies mentioned above and constitutes only 5% (Danaher, 221). At the same time, it is necessary to remember that the company attempts to enter new markets, such as e-commerce, where the position of its major competitors is still quite weak. Nevertheless, the competition will grow stronger, taking into consideration the growing offer of financial services concerning improvement of cost effectiveness of tax structures that means that company should keep pace with its major competitor and probably decrease its fee, enlarge its market share and enter new markets.

Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is possible to conclude that major competitors PricewaterhouseCoopers and K&L Gates, which are large multinational corporations that offer their customers various services that can help them optimize and introduce cost effective tax structures. As a result, customers of these companies can minimize their costs and optimize taxes. Basically, the services of these companies are very important and the demand will remain stable or even grow in the future, taking into consideration the fact that the globalization of the world economy stimulates international market expansion of companies and, therefore, companies need to be able to work in an extremely diverse legal and tax environment. This is why it is possible to estimate that PricewaterhouseCoopers and K&L Gates are the major competitors on the international markets since they operate worldwide and naturally attempt to increase their share of the market.